4 of 10This '57 Ferrari is rather magnificent and extra double-bubbled.

Photo by Davey G. Johnson

5 of 10Running along the edge of Lake Tahoe, the pack descends on Emerald Bay.

Photo by Seth DeDoes

6 of 10'47 Cisitalia on the way to Virginia City.

Photo by Seth DeDoes

7 of 10Austin-Healey 100-4 on the way up Mount Rose.

Photo by Seth DeDoes

8 of 10With a top speed of about 55mph, David Swig was actively trying to get a speeding ticket in his Pininfarina-bodied Appia so he could frame it.

Photo by Seth DeDoes

9 of 10A young Brigitte Bardot in this exact California Spider? Yes, that happened.

Photo by Davey G. Johnson

10 of 10The Americans are coming! The Americans are coming!

Photo by Seth DeDoes

“It was never a matter of saying, 'Are we going to continue? Continuing was always the plan,” according to David Swig, the son of California Mille Miglia founder Martin Swig, who passed away last year after 22 years at the helm of the car rally. “My brother [Howard] and I grew up with the spirit of the Mille Miglia in our blood. It is and always will remain a family event.”

The Califorinia Mille Miglia is one of a very small handful of truly special and spectacular vintage motoring adventures. It will celebrate its 23rd running April 29 to May 3, and it will continue on after that for as long as there are Swigs behind the wheels of wonderful old cars. Right now there are at least two of them, David and Howard, both of whom inherited their father's love of cars.

“When I was 16, I took my driving test in an Alfa Veloce Spider with a stick,” David said. “I was exposed to the best of Italian motoring from a very young age.”

Father Martin Swig was perhaps the consummate car guy. He wanted to go to Art Center to become a car designer, but his own father insisted on Stanford business school. It worked out for the better. After starting out humbly, selling Alfas and Fiats while attending Stanford, Martin Swig became one of the first if not the very first mega-dealer, with up to 22 dealerships under his control at his peak. When he sold what had become the first dealership mega mall, he suddenly had time to pursue full time his love of classic old sports cars, many of them Italian.

“I was born in 1984, and not to long after that my dad went to Italy for the original Mille Miglia [re-creation],” David said. “My father's enthusiasm for this stuff was certainly infectious. It has defined my life and my brother's. We are here to carry on with Martin's legacy and make it better than before.”

Indeed, with 70 entries lined up for this year's California Mille, there are more than there have been in the history of the event.

“We had more entries this year than my father had in his 22 years of running it. I don't know how much is due to the fact that our father died. Certainly, some people are running it as a tribute to my dad, but there was no trouble in filling the grid,” said David. “For the last three months, we've had a waiting list.”

But they haven't made it any easier to enter. All cars must have been able to run in the first Mille in Italy, which ran 24 years before and after WWII.

“What we really want are cars appropriate to the theme of the event, cars that could have competed in the original Mille, generally that means 1957 and earlier. Is this car correct? Is it legitimate? Has it been modified? We want a good level of authenticity.

The 70 or so cars include everything from a 1928 Bugatti 35B to Ferraris, Jaguars, Lancias, Gullwing Mercedes and a Kurtis 500KKS1. The Swigs know their stuff, too. David is a classic-car expert with Bonhams and Howard works for CarTeligent in sales. So you won't be able to slip a fiberglass-bodied somethingorother by them.

The route will be good, too.

“We decided to go with one of our classic Northern California routes this year. Dad's favorite California road was Highway 36 from Red Bluff to the coast. Once our father died in July, we decided to honor what dad wanted to do -- Highway 36. So that then dictated where we would go: Redding, Highway 36, Benbow, down coast to the Little River Inn in Mendocino, the wine country, Calistoga for nights three and four. It's a very nice cross section of California. You get a real broad sense of California landscape. We want to showcase all of California's vast scenery.”

It's not just the cars and the route that are important, Swig added, the people driving are just as crucial to a successful Mille.

“We want a good mix of people. There are a lot of returning Mille drivers but there are also 20 or 30 percent new drivers. You gotta get some new blood in here.”

While it's way too late to get your car in the rally this year, you can see the entries the day before the Mille departs in a free car show from 11:00-6:00 April 28 on Mason Street in front of the Fairmont Hotel on top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. The show runs all day.

Mark Vaughn
- After slumming in Europe five years covering F1 etc. Mark Vaughn interviewed with Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show has been with us ever since because no one else will take him. Anyone?
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